Isaiah 9:1
“But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.”
Reflection:
The historical facts about this prophecy, facts that even the most liberal scholars affirm, should impress you enough to radically change your life this very day.
That doesn’t mean it will. You may very well read these truths and choose to ignore them. You may choose to go about your day, choosing to forget what you learned here.
Here are the simple facts: Isaiah was most written approximately 700 years before Jesus was born. Hundreds of years before Joseph withdrew to the region of Galilee, hundreds of years before Jesus was born and grew up in Galilee, God promised to bring glory to all of His people through that little city. Then He did it.
Are you going to argue that Isaiah got lucky with this guess of Galilee? It’s hypothetically possible. But in light of all of the very, very precise predictions about the Messiah that were fulfilled by Jesus, dozens and dozens made by Isaiah himself, again, the odds are astronomically low that he was just lucky every single time. The most likely explanation is that it is true: Isaiah predicted that the Messiah would come through Galilee, that God would restore His people through that obscure place, and then Jesus fulfilled it.
What are you going to do with those facts? Will you ignore them?
In Christ,
Pastor Yonkman